Salad Is Slaughter

Thursday was our last day in the park(s). After a noisy breakfast that reinforced my dislike of undisciplined brats and the parents who inflict them on unsuspecting diners we packed up and made our way to the Jackson Hole Airport.

We knew we were going to be early so we decided to try to spot a moose or two in the same area of our unsuccessful attempt the day before. We stopped at the overlook twice - once on the way out and once on the way back - and drove past some likely marshes. Once again the results were the same. We spotted some trampled down vegetation but we didn’t see a moose.

The animal count for the trip:

• Bears: 1
• Moose: 1
• Pronghorn:  3
• Deer: Several
• Elk: A couple of dozen
• Bison: A couple of hundred
• Mosquitoes: Several million

We dropped off the rental at the Jackson Hole airport. The rental return area isn’t much separated from the rest of the parking lot so you just park as close to the return sign as you can. We told the Hertz agent where we parked and she assured us that she would find the car. Since they haven’t contacted us in the past two weeks, I have to assume they did find it and there isn’t a warrant out for our arrest.

The Jackson Hole airport is tiny, and not very busy in mid-July. They get the occasional large aircraft in but there’s a lot of general aviation, too. We got some lunch then went through security. There were so few people in the airport that the TSA inspectors would strike up a conversation with you just to relieve the boredom.

It was a quick flight to Salt Lake City and then we had our layover. Due to a flight scheduling change we had a 5 or 6 hour wait until our next flight. Since we knew that before we left home, we had a plan. Go eat dinner at the Red Iguana restaurant.

But how to get there? Our first thought was to take a cab but Mrs. Salad Is Slaughter remembered that the last time she took a cab from the Salt Lake City airport to downtown it costs a ton of money, on the order of 50 or 60 bucks. So we went to the car rental area.

We first checked Hertz and Budget. They both wanted about 90 dollars or so for just the couple of hours we’d need the car because they rent by the day. Then we went over to the Thrifty booth. Forty-something bucks. That’s cheaper than a cab ride and we wouldn’t have to call a cab to return to the airport.

Red Iguana is one of the best Mexican restaurants anywhere. And I say that as someone who’s eaten Mexican food in California, Texas, Nevada and New Mexico. I had the lomo de puerco en mole de almendras - a mole dish of almonds, chile guajillo, chile guero, yellow zucchini, milk, peanut butter and onions, served with aroasted pork loin stuffed with dried fruit, sun-dried tomatoes, swiss chard and pine nuts. Wow, it was good.

Mrs. SisS ordered a combo plate with a taco, enchilada, and chili relleno. Of course we had to sample each other’s selections. The taco show looked like it was freshly made and not out of a box. That makes a tremendous difference right there. The cheese enchilada was excellent and was covered with one of the best enchilada sauces I’ve ever had. The chili relleno was very good; not the absolute best I’ve ever had, but far above average.

After finishing our most excellent dinner, confirming that our last visit wasn’t a fluke and buying Red Iguana tee shirts and shot glasses we drove back to the airport and waited. We spent a lot of time wandering around the airport shops. I spotted a Carl Sagan book sitting next to a piece of Deepak Chopra bullshit and starting making snide comments about putting science books next to nonsense. In another store I saw the latest piece of crap from swindler Silvia Brown and started making more disparaging comments. Clearly the airport bookstores weren’t the place for me to be.

We finally hopped on our plane and arrived home late. We paid off the dog sitter and greeted our animals who not surprisingly were really glad to see us.

The Lake Hotel is one of the older hotels we stayed in during our Yellowstone adventure and one of the nicest.  It also had the absolute worst cell phone reception of anywhere.  In order to call the dog sitter to check on the critters, Mrs. Salad Is Slaughter had to use the phone on the desk and pay their outrageous charges.

The Lake Hotel dining room is the best restaurant we tried inside the park.  They’ve also got far and away the best wine list.  We ordered a really nice bottle of Caymus cab and it immediately reminded me of the quality of wine that we had been missing all week.  Oh, and if you don’t have reservations, you won’t get in.  Mrs. SisS made ours when she made the hotel reservation.

We started off with the slow roasted pork belly with the dijon brown sugar glaze appetizer.  If you haven’t tried pork belly you don’t know what you’re missing.  Sweet, succulent delicious meat covered with just enough pork fat to be interesting.  This cut of pig has long been a favorite of top chefs, and the Lake Hotel dining room did it perfectly.

Next up was chilled cucumber soup with diced tomato, cucumber, lemon zest, and dill.  Cold soups are always interesting and this one was no exception.  The taste was of pure cucumber with the other flavors enhancing, not detracting from the flavor.  This was a really good choice.

Mrs. Salad Is Slaughter ordered the antelope medallions and broiled lobster tail served with huckleberry butter, red potatoes, and asparagus.  Normally we don’t order seafood in a landlocked state (the exception being Las Vegas) but the lobster tail was delicious; absolutely fresh and cooked perfectly.  The antelope had a really strong flavor that was tempered by the sauce.  I ate several pieces.

I went with the Montana legend beef tenderloin with rosemary cabernet sauce.  It was served with mashed potatoes and asparagus.  The beef medallions were really tender and juicy and the sauce was amazing.

The dessert menu is where the Lake Hotel dining room came up a bit short.  The selection was about on par with the other park restaurants and not obviously superior as was the dinner menu.  Mrs. SisS ordered the crème brulee cheesecake while I went with the huckleberry ice cream.  The cheesecake was good but it was only a nodding acquaintance of crème brulee.  The huckleberry ice cream was delicious and I liked the flavor of huckleberries enough that after dinner I bought some huckleberry jam.

After dinner we tried to go for a walk, but the mosquitoes were so bad - at one point a swarm chased us - that we decided that a walk was a bad idea and retired for the evening.

Loading up the car on Wednesday morning was not altogether pleasant as the mosquitoes were out in force.  It turned out that was a good introduction to what we would experience later at Lake Village, but that’s getting ahead of the story.

Yellowstone is a good place to people watch.  I saw some interesting tee shirts at Old Faithful - PETA, People Eating Tasty Animails and Meat is Murder.  Tasty Tasty Murder - to name a few.   We had just left the breakfast buffet at the Grant Village Dining Room and we were kind of ticked off.  During breakfast at Mammoth we ordered a sandwich to go so we wouldn’t have to eat lunch so late.  We tried the same thing at the Grant Village Dining Room and were told we had to order a box lunch the night before.  The menu clearly says:

FOR THIS AFTERNOON
Please inquire about our box lunches to go

so I wasn’t too pleased with them.  As we were walking out the door I saw two good old boys, kind of stocky, wearing tee shirts and Texas baseballs caps.  I had to do a double take when I heard them speaking French.  That wasn’t what I expected and it lightened my mood a bit.

At Grant Village we saw our second incident of people being stupid.  We drove past a rather large elk, and walking toward it was a girl in her early twenties, head down and iPod blaring in her ears.  She finally noticed the elk and came to an abrupt stop about 5 or 6 feet away from it.  She looked like she was trying to decide if she should walk past it on the path, or what.  We drove away before she did something even more stupid.  People, wake up, pay attention, and assume that the critters in the park will hurt you if you get too close.

We left Grant Village and headed down to Grand Teton National Park.  It’s a nice drive through Yellowstone, on through a national forest, then in to Grand Teton.

I’ve seen lots of mountains.  I spent 18 months in northern Japan and saw mountains there.  I’ve been to the mountains in Colorado and Utah.  I’ve visited Banff and Lake Louise in Alberta, Canada and saw some really impressive mountains there.  We’ve been to Yosemite several times and gazed upon El Capitan and Half Dome.  Three years ago we went to Alaska and saw some spectacular mountains.  The mountains at Grand Teton National Park are more stunning than all of those.

To my non-geologist eye the mountains in Grand Teton seem really young.  They’re high, steep, have really sharp edges, and show some evidence of glacial activity.  They tower above Jackson Lake and Jenny Lake.  They’re beautiful.

During dinner on Tuesday night at the Grant Village Dining Room, we were talking with the waitress and she told us that she took a rough road from the town of Moose Wyoming and saw at least three moose.  During our drive through Grand Teton National Park we stopped at the Jenny Lake visitor center and talked to a ranger.  She confirmed that if we wanted to see a moose, that was the road to take.

We kept on driving through the park, stopping occasionally to take in the sites and snap some photos.  Eventually we got to the town of Moose Wyoming and stopped by the post office.  While at Old Faithful we bought a wooden ceramic moose and decided that mailing it home would be a good idea, and what better place to mail a moose home than Moose Wyoming?

We easily found Moose-Wilson Road - it’s just across from the post office - and started our drive.  It’s scenic, winding through forests and past marshes.  The road itself is a bit narrow and goes from paved to gravel in some areas.

We scanned the marshes for moose but had no luck.  We continued down Moose-Wilson Road and eventually came to the Jackson Hole ski area.  We stopped for lunch (I think I had chicken strips or something) and made the return trip.

We drove back up Moose-Wilson Road and continued to scan the woods and the marshes for critters.  Still no luck.  We pulled over at an observation area that overlooks a marsh were moose are known to frequent.  We scanned the area with our binoculars and we could tell that moose had recently been in the area because we could see the trampled down grass.  But still no moose was to be found.  Probably because it just wasn’t the right time of day for them.

We finally gave up and drove back to Yellowstone.

The Grant Village accommodations were nice if a bit weird.  The room itself had only a twin bed but there was enough area in the room for at least two of those, or a queen, or even a king sized bed.  Maybe it was a room normally reserved for groups or families who lay out several sleeping bags on the floor.  I don’t know about that but I do know it struck me as unusual.

Dinner was at the Grant Village Dining Room and this was the first place where reservations for dinner were required.  I’m not really sure why that is.  The place wasn’t that crowded but I guess it’s possible that the kitchen is a bit small and they wanted to ensure that the dinner rush was spread out over the evening instead of having them get hit all at once.

We started off with Tuscan Bean Soup.  It was good but honestly not that memorable.  Mrs. Salad Is Slaughter ordered the Bison Meatloaf with rosemary gravy, mashed red potatoes, and sauteed spinach.  She loved it and decided right then that we’re going to take the frozen ground bison we have in the freezer at home and make bison meatloaf with it.

I had the Portabella Mushroom Cannelloni with cream sauce, diced tomato, asiago cheese, white truffle oil.  It was really good.  Portabella mushrooms are a nice substitute for meat, and the cream sauce went with them perfectly.

We finished the meal with bourbon pecan pie, a delicious variation on the traditional southern dessert.

Our original plan was to head out early so we could reach the Old Faithful geyser before most of the crowds showed up.  That plan fell through because there’s just so much to see.  We left the Mammoth Hot Springs area and headed south toward the lower, midway, and upper geyser basins.

It is possible to get sensory overload.  Everywhere we stopped we saw pools containing the most remarkable blue water.  The ground around the pools was a riot of rainbow colors.  Many of the pools had columns of hot steam rising from them, and when the wind was in the right direction you would get a steam bath.  The sites along this side of the park are stunning and after a while your brain just accepts them.  “Oh, another fabulous site,” it says.  “That’s nice.”

We jumped off the main road and drove Firehole Lake Drive.  As we first entered the area, Mrs. Salad Is Slaughter spotted two separate sites with the remains of kills.  The bleached bones looked to be deer.  I suspect they were bear kills, but they could have also been from wolves.

More fabulous sites; blue pools, rainbow-color earth, columns of steam, geysers that looked like small volcanoes.  You know, typical Yellowstone scenery.

We finally made it down to Old Faithful and that area is a zoo.  There were people everywhere and this was definitely the most packed area of the park we’d been to.  We found parking right away, but I think that’s because the geyser had recently erupted and the last crowd was clearing out.

Old Faithful erupts roughly every 90 minutes, plus or minus 10 minutes, and we were at least 45 minutes out.  We walked around the shops, walked around a bit, then sat under a tree to wait.  As the estimated time of eruption approached we headed toward Old Faithful and stood behind the benches.  The place was packed.  There was easily 2000 people (maybe more) gathered around to watch this thing blow.

The estimated time came and went.  I made a comment to Mrs. SisS that we could say that we were here when Old Faithful failed to erupt, and wouldn’t that be something to brag about.  However, Old Faithful erupted at the end of the 20 minute window.  It put on an impressive show with the steam and noise and the column of water shooting high in to the air.

When the geyser had died down we took a quick look at the Old Faithful Inn then headed over to our next hotel.